Political Polarization Is Mainly A Right-Wing Phenomenon

Yet another study showing that right wingers are very insular and myopic in their news consumption.

A major new study of social-media sharing patterns shows that political polarization is more common among conservatives than liberals — and that the exaggerations and falsehoods emanating from right-wing media outlets such as Breitbart News have infected mainstream discourse.

The CJR study, by scholars at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, at Harvard Law School, and the MIT Center for Civic Media, examined more than 1.25 million articles between April 1, 2015, and Election Day. What they found was that Hillary Clinton supporters shared stories from across a relatively broad political spectrum, including center-right sources such as The Wall Street Journal, mainstream news organizations like the Times and the Post, and partisan liberal sites like The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast.

By contrast, Donald Trump supporters clustered around Breitbart — headed until recently by Stephen Bannon, the hard-right nationalist now ensconced in the White House — and a few like-minded websites such as The Daily Caller, Alex Jones' Infowars, and The Gateway Pundit. Even Fox News was dropped from the favored circle back when it was attacking Trump during the primaries, and only re-entered the fold once it had made its peace with the future president.

Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, writing about the study earlier this week, recalled talking with a Trump voter in Pennsylvania who said she didn’t support Clinton because “I didn’t like how she stole those emails and it got people killed in Benghazi” — a perfect storm of misinformation.

It's not like a study was even needed, we see it all the time here, I see it from conservatives on facebook. They only cite the most ridiculous of sources

Compare liberal posts here, where they provide reasoning, to right wing responses that are simply one or two lines of essentially saying "liberals are poopyheads" and complete deflections

Make a couple paragraph argument, you get "you lost, get over it" as a response. It's pretty much the universal response you see not just on this forum, but others, and even people you know on facebook.

That is a hilarious claim considering that 90% of the threads here are anti-Trump started by left wingers.

What does that have to do with the fact that right wingers depend on a limited number of news sources and most of those depend on Breitbart? There is a right wing news bubble that is very insular. Do you have an argument against that?

What does that have to do with the fact that right wingers depend on a limited number of news sources and most of those depend on Breitbart? There is a right wing news bubble that is very insular. Do you have an argument against that?

Where I just recently bought in the heart of the "State of Jefferson", I get a little weekly newspaper that purports to have local news from all sources but so far mainly seems to be made up of disgruntled old male retiree Tea Partiers and their opinion pieces. Every single one repeatedly cites Breitbart and The Daily Caller and quotes Limbaugh as their main sources.

Where I just recently bought in the heart of the State of Jefferson, I get a little weekly newspaper that purports to have local news from all sources but so far mainly seems to be made up of disgruntled old male retiree Tea Partiers and their opinion pieces. Every single one repeatedly cites Breitbart and The Daily Caller and quotes Limbaugh as their main sources.

Our local newspaper does that now too. Our Op Ed page is almost entirely Breitbart reporters. Several other newspaper locally have done that too. It seems to be happening in a lot of places. Our local high school now allows Breitbart as a legitimate source for students to use. I haven't looked into it yet but now I will have to see who owns the newspapers and such around here. I know Liberty Media and Sinclair are buying up everything.

What does that have to do with the fact that right wingers depend on a limited number of news sources and most of those depend on Breitbart? There is a right wing news bubble that is very insular. Do you have an argument against that?

Do you think that the Times, CNN, HuffPo, and the other sources cited were neutral and unbiased in their campaign coverage of Trump and Clinton?